Johnny

Boxer, dancer, tech guy...now living free and carefree around the world. I'm not traveling, I'm just going home to a new place.

Marau – quick travel guide

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Lesser known peninsula area of Bahia, characterized by beaches with many rocks and natural pools, surrounded by chill and less developed islands.

The numerous rocks on the beach combined by the long inconvenient route to get here, help very much to keep it a less popular tourist destination. Getting there requires the use of infrequent buses and/or ferry or driving on a terrible rocky road full of potholes (that almost no taxi driver wants to do). The rocks on the beach are the sharp jagged kind that hurt your feet. Pretty to look at, can wander inside the natural pools or explore sealife at low tide, also fun for children and family activities, but may be less desirable for those wanting a clear beach which just sand and ocean.

All areas of the peninsula (except for one) are very quiet and very few open business establishments (let alone nightlife) after a certain hour. Overall, it’s a nice place for perhaps couples or families. Young crowds or or solo travelers looking for nightlife and something more social may easily get bored or feel too disconnected from everybody else here.

I recommend a 5-day minimum for Marau. Especially considering how much of a hassle it is to get to. Spend 3 days in Barra Grande and 2 days in Taipu de Fora. You could also switch that around if you’re some who wants more remote vibes and quiet.

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Paraty – quick travel guide

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Small charmy colonial town, many cute shops and restaurants, with beautiful beaches and islands nearby.

Paraty is a nicely balanced destination. The town itself is small but its unique quality is the historical center (old town cobbled road) full of nice restaurants, bars, and shops. Relaxed vibe but people do dress up, so it’s not like a beach-bum town. The beaches by the town are not swimmable but within 15min-1hr drive you have many amazing beaches, waterfalls, rivers, parks, etc to do whatever nature activity you wish. You’ll usually spend the day driving around to beach and nature stuff, then come back home to the historical center at night.

The accommodations are not expensive. And there are all kinds of nature and animals in the area. You can see the little sagui monkeys running about your accommodation. With extra time in your day, you can drive just 35mins to reach Trindade (another nice tourist destination with its own vibe).

3 days gets you a sense of the area, 1 week would be more appropriate to have chill days exploring both the town and all the water activities and nature nearby. If you had to stay a month, you still wouldn’t be bored…there are many things to do and see.

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Ubatuba – quick travel guide

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Small beach city which gets crazy crowded sometimes, mostly family-oriented beaches but also a few nice chill beaches as well.

Although I had a great time going early Jan 2025, I recommend you absolutely avoid during high season because you’ll have both crappy weather (lots of rain) and too much overcrowding. Car traffic all day long making exploring other beaches by car impossible, and lots of people on the beaches. Go during low season and it’ll feel like a more magical quieter beach town.

3 days is enough. Not practical to stay longer because of inconvenience…not as walkable compared to other beach towns. Many areas are far from each other, and beaches are not that nice.

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Gori – quick travel guide

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Small city 1hr drive west of Tbilisi, with historical sights.

Georgia’s 5th populous city, but still only 50,000 population. This town is not particularly interesting whatsoever. People usually come here as part of the tour to see the Gori Fortress, Stalin Museum, and Uplistsikhe ancient cave city. I would recommend only the Stalin Museum and cave city. Gori Fortress only if you got extra time.

3-4 hours, or half day, should cover all of those. Or a day tour if you’re coming from Tbilisi.

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Boipeba – quick travel guide

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Small beautiful beach island with a peaceful nature vibe (even during high season).

The main reason for going here is because you want something chill, peace and quiet. It’s the exact contrast to Morro de Sao Paulo, the larger much more popular island just north next door to Boipeba. Morro is known for being a massively popular touristic town with lots of restaurants, bars, nightlife, AND NOISE!

Boipeba is the opposite. Lots of nature! As enticing as it sounds…it doesn’t mean perfect for you. The “nature” I speak of means much less infrastructure. The only roads accessible by car are the very city center. And the rest of the island is reachable by ATV (“quadriciclo”) or tractor (yes, a farm tractor pulls a long wagon with many bench seats…treated like a bus on sand) or boat. Making getting around slightly less convenient. You can’t just walk to all the beautiful beaches the way you can on Morro de Sao Paulo.

Food options are much less abundant. I was disappointed in the food, actually. There are some great restaurants, like maybe 3-5 tops. At Morro de Sao Paulo, felt like I had great food every night and still had 30 more restaurants to try. Nightlife is almost non-existent. And I kind of liked it. The center square of Boipeba is very quiet, very low-level music if any. It’s not a dueling set of bars vying to see who was loudest. It’s also true that while Morro de Sao Paulo is for everybody, but most popular with young sexy party people…Boipeba is more for couples, older folks, locals trying to save money, or families. Boipeba is cheaper in general.

As with most Brazilian beach vacation towns, most people stay 5-7 days. But you can see everything within 3 days.

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Toronto – quick travel guide

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A nice urban sprawl city in Canada, somewhat like New York’s little brother.

This is Canada’s #1 most expensive city on the east coast, #2 in the nation behind Vancouver. Toronto is urban, dense, vibrant, hip, full of places to go, things to do, and also conveniently located near other major destinations in America and Canada.

In terms of tourism, I think it’s ok. I prefer it more as a nice place to live. You could certainly get a solid feel within 3-5 days.

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TOP eyeglasses brands review

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https://www.izipizi.com/

Nice designs at reasonable prices.

They look nice (many interesting styles, both classic & uncommon) and at a good price. Depending which country you’re shipping to, the price can be cheaper. 🙂

Homepage

Super cool avant garde designs…highly trendy stuff.

SunGod

goodr

Messy Weekend

Okkia

Lyon – quick travel guide

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France’s gastronomic capital, vibrant mix of metropolitan and hipster vibes. Lots of small dense streets, leading up to hills with skyline views across 2 rivers.

Lyon is somewhat the French equivalent of Lisbon. Very hilly with lots of narrow streets. Restaurants with outdoor seating on the sloped sidewalks. No matter where you are, you’re just a block away from a little neighborhood park with views overlooking the city.

I especially like that Lyon can be both posh or chill as you like. And at any given moment, you can escape the city chaos by turning the nearest corner into a quieter area. Rather than being stuck in a dense city center and having to walk 25 mins out to escape the chaos.

You could definitely run through everything within 2 days, but it’s so worth staying longer.

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Barcelona – quick travel guide

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Spain’s most popular tourist city, with beaches, nightlife, interesting Moorish architecture & Gaudi buildings, vibrant city life.

Barcelona is like the big city version of a small city. Everything is walkable and vibey. Shops, bars, restaurants, on every corner. Seems like ever neighborhood can be cool if you know where to look. Having Spanish as the main language is super easy as well for the many people who already speak or have familiarity with Spanish. With its Catalan culture, language, architecture, lifestyle and identity…Barcelona is identified by the locals as being in Catalonia.

3-5 days is the solid minimum. But you’ll easily fill a week without boredom.

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Hong Kong – quick travel guide

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SAR…vibrant crowded hilly city spread across many islands, with amazing fusion food influenced by both west and east culture. (Arguably world’s best foodie destination.)

First thing to know is Hong Kong is NOT mainland China…and for HK people, Hong Kong is NOT China! Get that into your head when talking to the locals. They are NOT Chinese, they are HongKongers or Hong Kongese. Different language, different history, different culture. As a tourist, you’ll find English is widely spoken in HK (much like Taiwan) and even at fluent level. You can almost stop and talk to anyone in the street.

Appearance-wise, Hong Kong really looks like a Chinese version of London, New York, and San Francisco all mixed together.

  • British red phone booths (like London)
  • Hilly city (like SF)
  • Dense city with many skyscrapers (like NY)
  • Double-decker trams similar to both London double-decker buses and SF historic tram
  • Hong Kong was occupied by the British for 150 years, in case you didn’t know.

Yes, I think HK is the best foodie city in the world. I said it and I meant it with every ounce of my heart. This is due to the multicultural influence, and high standard for food, AND expectation. No doubt about it, Asians know how to eat and prepare food to a wider range of flavors than anybody else. Other countries might have good food but only when you pay a lot of money, or find the right restaurants, or they’re only good in a few dishes. But here…seems like tons of amazing restaurants are packed in every corner.

Known for tall beautiful city skyline (both day & night)

You could see the main tourist things and get a sense of Hong Kong within 3 days. But the city is really a nice enough vibe to sit out here for a week, a month, or a year. Don’t forget that Hong Kong Island is not the only place to see.

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Korea vs Japan – traveler comparisons

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Both of these countries and lifestyles/cultures are similar in some ways, different in others.

Both are highly developed Asian countries with high standard of living. Also very Westernized or at least western-friendly and western-relatable cultures. Japanese culture has been known about for much longer in western countries but with the explosion of K-POP and korean food some decades ago, it seems more westerners have familiarity with Korea as well.

Let’s go over some comparisons…

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Chongqing – quick travel guide

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Massive hilly main city of China with spicy food, lots of nature (near Chengdu/pandas), and very hot weather.

Chongqing, nearby the more popular Chengdu (panda tourist destination), is the biggest city you never heard of. 32 million people (officially China’s largest metropolitan area) when I went in summer 2024. For a foreigner, this city is known for its super hot weather, lots of nature (in the municipality), extremely spicy food (origin of Chinese hot pot), origin of Chinese foot massage, and lots of west China’s history and culture. Locals refer to it as the mountain city, or “hilly city with many layers”.

Most tourists and foreigners much prefer Chengdu over Chongqing. For being more tourist friendly, more unique things to see, also panda stuff, and that it’s far less crowded. There’s a sentiment that whatever tourist value Chongqing has, you could find it elsewhere in China already. And I agree with that. You should only pick Chongqing over Chengdu if you have a specific reason.

3 days is enough to feel the vibe, try spicy food, take mountain photos, and walk main busy tourist areas. 4-6 days if you actually want to visit the nearby nature destinations.

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Shanghai – quick travel guide

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China’s most international city. Most westerners and expats, English-friendly. Big, clean, quiet (seems all vehicles are electric), cleaner air, modern commercial hub, many business people here.

Despite recent complaints during covid lockdowns (2020-2021) about the government being too restrictive and killing the fun and business liberty, Shanghai is still a very nice place to live. Lifestyle here is very modern and trendy, in contrast to a more traditional or old-school lifestyle elsewhere in China. Whether that fits your taste is another matter altogether.

4-5 days would allow you to explore different areas and enjoy the metropolitan lifestyle.

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China – quick travel guide

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Huge territory of various terrain, food, and intact culture thousands of years old.

China is a really great place to travel because:

  1. There’s so much to see. A wide range of culture, nature, landscape, food, and everything intact for a civilization thousands of years old.
  2. It’s so different from anywhere else you’ve ever been.
  3. It caters to all price ranges. Whereas most countries are either all expensive or all less developed, China has the extremes of both. Which means you can find affordable accommodation and food in nice cities right next to fancy accommodation and food.
  4. It’s safe.

Bottomline, China is such an underrated place to travel. There’s so much to see and do, much of it relatively untainted by western tourism and culture. You actually feel like you’re seeing a totally new place. And the price is quite cheap for such a developed country. It’s loads of fun and feels like a whole new continent rather than just one country. Many of the unique things you’d find in Japan or Korea would be eclipsed by far more variety in China.

You could get A LICK (not even a taste) of China within a week. Like at least 4 days per major city. I honestly feel you could be here a month and feel like you barely saw 2% of the highlights. You would almost have to be here at least 3 months or a year to feel like you comprehended it.

As a reference, I feel America could be comprehensively sampled within a month. Western Europe within 2-3 months. But China?? Again…that civilization has been around thousands of years and their country is so big…I really don’t know, 6-12 months?

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Montenegro – quick travel guide

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Recent popular “cheaper” European tourist destination, known for beaches and mountains.

Most foreigners know Montenegro for its beaches. Nearby Balkans know Montenegro for its mountains as well. I much prefer it for the mountains. Perhaps Montenegro was a cheap alternative 10-20 years ago but its certainly caught up now. If you want cheap, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Nonetheless, it’s still worth visiting if even just to see something new. The vibe is somewhat similar to Croatia and Serbia depending on where you go.

A week to see main sights. But 2 weeks is you really want to understand the beauty of its nature.

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Kolasin – quick travel guide

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Fast-growing tiny mountain town famous for summer nature and winter ski getaways.

One of Montenegro’s best kept secrets. Small, cozy, friendly but vibrant and with many nature things to do. Highly recommended to have a car or else you’ll use expensive to get anywhere. Having locals to hangout would also be helpful since they’ll know many things well.

A weekend is a enough time but I stayed here 2 weeks and loved every second of it.

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